Tierra Encantada

Nov

2011

Lest We Forget

It is Veteran’s Day here in the United States and there is an outpouring of support and remembrance for U.S. soldiers that sacrificed their lives, in part or in whole, to serve in our military. So I thought I might post this image I took earlier this fall. It seems to fit in with the theme of the day.

The title I chose is one I feel the need to actually explain. It could, I suppose, be understood as recognizing this day of remembrance but I did not choose this title specifically for this day. I chose it more out of a sense of bemusement.

You see, I spotted this garage as I was driving down the street at the end of an early fall day while the sun was shining beautifully. I hesitated for a second or two, and then I spun the car around, parked across the street, and got out of the car with my camera and took a few images of this scene as well as the house next door.

I remember not knowing why this scene felt so fascinating to me. I just remember that it felt that way. I felt curious, bemused, wondering. Mostly, as I think upon it now, I wonder what it must be like to pull up to this garage after each day’s labor. I wonder what inspired this person to paint the U.S. flag on their garage door.

I imagine it was done with a sense of pride and patriotism but I wonder what compels a person to throw it up in their-and others’-faces repeatedly. Did they think they would forget who they were, where they were from, and what they believed in? Did they need a daily reminder? Did the rest of us passing by need one? I both understand it and it strikes me as funny all at once.

I suppose that is what bemuses me. When I look at this scene I get two simultaneous and conflicting reactions. One is “yes” (it is an act of urban, contemporary, cultural art-making, after all) and “for heaven’s sake, why?”

I’m curious, what is your response to this image or to similar scenes where you are from?

Nov

2011

Dia de los Muertos 2011 (Part 2)

Read Part 1 here.

I went to this year’s Muertos Y Marigolds Dia de los Muertos Parade with a better understanding of what I would encounter. After all, I’d been each of the past three years. It is a really fun and fascinating event with photo opportunities in nearly every direction. This year was no different; more so even!

My goal was to photograph images that could support previous efforts to create the feeling of being at the parade, so I started looking for more images of the spectators interacting with the participants. I found this really challenging though because so many of the spectators are dressed up, painted, and generally taking part in the entire spectacle. It is fabulous, and distracting!

It became quite challenging to tell the participants and spectators apart.

Eventually the sun dipped below the horizon and I broke out my flash. Using it off camera I began to play with some exposures of the tail end of the parade-those folks that hung in there, did the length of the parade route in the dark…and the cold.

In the end it was these last three images that have more of the feel that I was looking for.

Nov

2011

Dia de los Muertos 2011 (Part 1)

Each November, in the South Valley of Albuquerque, New Mexico the city gathers to remember the dead in the annual Muertos y Marigolds Dia de los Muertos Parade. I’d attended this for the past 3 years, photographing it each time. It is, quite honestly, one of the best photo-ops in the city and cameras are out in full force.

I don’t know what other Dia de los Muertos festivals are like. This is the only one I’ve been to. But I have a feeling this festival is uniquely Burque!

Lately I’ve been working up the courage to begin a rather large project. Inspired by Stuart Sipahigil’s encouragement to shoot “Close to Home” and constrained (travel-wise) by a growing and young family, I began to turn my photographic eye toward telling the story of my adopted state, New Mexico. And so, with each thing I photograph for this project, I am trying to bring the viewer into the image; trying to give the viewer a feel for what it is like to be there.

So I went to the parade this year with some idea of what I wanted to capture. I felt I had a pretty good series of portraits and ghoulish images from years past, so I wanted to give some sense of the interaction of the crowd with the parade as well as give a sense of the crowded multicultural spectacle-you know, the Indo-Hispano-Anglo-grow local-anti-establishment-low rider-marching band-school group-gender/sexual orientation equality-gang-bicycle-eclectic artist community all out celebrating the departed, calaveras, marigolds, and candy.

I worked the participants and the crowd a bit at the beginning. The light was pretty but threatening to go behind some clouds and the anticipation of the parade, the largest yet that I’ve seen, made for some harried photographing. I was having some trouble getting into the zone. After the Aztec Dancers made their customary blessing (this is the same group that last week blessed El Kookooee before he met his fiery fate) the parade began in earnest.

Check back in a couple days for the continuation of this little story. In the next post I will share some of the shots I am most happy with this year. They were a little surprising for me and I hope you will like them.

Oct

2011

El Kookooee Se Quema (El Kookooee Burns)

Each year, on the last Sunday in October, the Mexican Bogeyman of El Kookooee is burned in effigy in the South Valley of Albuquerque, New Mexico. I’d never been to this event, or it’s bigger cousin, the Burning of Zozobra 50 miles north in Santa Fe, and so I thought I might go. I arrived early to get a feel for the environment and try to get a sense of what was going to happen. I’ve felt driven and called, both, to document and tell stories of this enchanted land where I live and although Daniel Milnor has also embarked on his journey to tell the story of New Mexico, I can’t help but tell my own vision of this place.

Each year the effigy is designed by a middle school student and then the design is reproduced giant size into El Kookooee, the Bogeyman. The burning of El Kookooee culminates the Festival de Otoño in this Latino neighborhood and is intended to help maintain the cultural heritage of Hispanics in the area. The effigy is stuffed with your fears and worries, written on slips of paper, to symbolize ending and rebirth.

As the day marched toward its inevitable conclusion and the crowds began to gather on the South Valley Baseball Fields the giant statue of El Kookooee was consecrated by Aztec Dancers, a belly dancer or two, and eventually by fire dancers.

The crowd took on a festival feeling as families arrived, set up picnic chairs and coolers, and children ran around and played. Folks arrived by car, by scooter, by foot, on horseback, and four wheeler.

Eventually night set in and the anticipation of the crowd was raised along with the volume on the PA system. To the beats of “Ring of Fire” by Johnny Cash, “Burning Down the House” by the Talking Heads, and the cries of “burn it! burn it! burn it” from the crowd, the Fire Dancers took over the attention of the onlookers.

Eventually the Fire Dancers earned their due and El Kookooee took the first steps in achieving his purpose as flames quickly licked their way up his right leg and engulfed him to the approving roar of the crowd.

Not long after, the people grew silent as people often will when faced with a cold dark night and a strong contained fire.

Whether lost in reflecting or filming the thing going up, not many could take their eyes from the burning bogeyman.

And eventually he lifted everyone’s fears and worries into another winter’s night.

Oct

2011

Go For Launch: A Picture Package (Balloon Fiesta 2011)

This series of images is a continuation of the story I began telling a couple of weeks ago. You can access that blog post here. In that series I attempted to tell the story of the lead-in to the balloon launch at the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta. I’ve lived here in Albuquerque for 16 years and have visited the Fiesta often and I had thought I would try to depict the wee hours of the morning (the end of the night, really) and not just replicate what 250,000 cameras do daily at this yearly, nine day festival. I hope it worked.

This picture package, this short story, is an attempt at telling the story of what happens once the night ends and the launch begins. I hope to give a feel for what it is like on the field for it is really indescribable.

With a “Go For Launch” clearance from the Dawn Patrol, the Balloon Fiesta Morning began in earnest. Launch coordinators dressed in varying zebra-striped patterns made sure launches were safe and I switched from my black and white, night photography focus to one that better suits the color and excitement of the Balloon Fiesta Mass Ascension.

The dawn sun began to hint toward a beautiful morning and the energy on the launch field grew more palpable as balloonists and gawkers alike looked eastward in anticipation of the sun’s first warm rays peeking over the Sandia Mountains.

This land of near eternal sun, this Land of Enchantment, has a very simple and very appropriate state symbol; the Zia Sun. I found myself fortunate as the Zia Balloon inflated right near me as it readied for takeoff.

All of a sudden balloons begin to rise en masse. All around balloons are lifting off, flying over, being laid out, inflated. Wave after wave, to rousing cheers, these silent sky carriages lift their cargo skyward.

Drawing the loudest applause, the Creamland Dairy Cow took flight. A thunderous beast, she often inflates but flies only on perfect days. She’s a bit temperamental in wind.

It’s a bit of a wonder that all this can happen due to the simple differences in behavioral properties of hot and cold air.

Before long the sky becomes an ever changing technicolor tapestry. If the viewer is fortunate the winds will play to his favor and create a “box wind”; a low elevation wind moving one direction while a higher elevation wind moves the opposite. This allows skilled balloonists to ride these opposing winds and rotate around the launch field.

The great fun of this event is the accessibility of the balloons. Viewers can walk right up to and talk to balloon crews, peer inside the inflating balloon as it lays on its side, even touch the balloons. Kids especially love this fiesta and spend lots of time gazing skyward.

Despite its early hour, it is a very family friendly time.

Oct

2011

Picture Package (Balloon Fiesta)

As some of you may have notice I’ve taken a turn toward documentary photography as of late. I really like individual photographs and their power, but there is something in trying to tell a story in a series of images that really captures my creative imagination-and challenges me to no end!

I that vein I’ve really been captured by the idea of “Picture Packages”, the idea that Daniel Milnor (aka Smogranch) put forth in this post. Basically, he tries to capture a short series of images that can stand on their own as well as tell a story as a group. Also inspired by Daniel’s willingness to make the process of his latest project (New Mexico) open and transparent by posting his images, thoughts, audio and video on tumblr, I thought I might share my latest efforts at creating a series. Below is a series of images I shot at the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta yesterday (Sunday) morning.

I went into the Balloon Fiesta Park with a set of ideas that I wanted to capture and that really drove my intention. Along the way I discovered some other opportunities that presented themselves and fit well into my idea. Still other pictures seemed to fit in as I was looking through the day’s images later in the evening. I’ve more to shoot and more to share to make this story more complete, but I’m really happy with the results. I hope you like the images as well.

Aug

2011

Blessed

Last month a friend of the family contacted me and asked to hire me to take pictures at her goddaughter’s baptism. It’s not often I get hired to document an event and though I don’t usually like shooting for money, I made an exception this time because she and her family are close family friends with big warm hearts. I couldn’t say no. And I had made it a goal to shoot a project for someone else this year in order to photograph under some pressure and see what I could learn from it.

I’m going to write about my process of doing this shoot at a later date so for now I would like to simply share a few images from the day. These are a series of portraits I made of different family members with the girl of the day. I just love how these portraits not only depict the moment but also how the people help define the place (New Mexico) for me. I hope you like them.

Jul

2011

Polo Teaser 3

I’m still working on my series of images taken from the polo tournament I attended a couple of weeks back. It has been a lot of fun editing the images down and I have arrived at about 19 that I want to keep to make a visual story. But I’m a bit stuck as to sequencing and whether all the images need to be included. So, I’ve decided to print them out and sort through them manually rather than digitally. There is just something magical when I can include the tactile element in my decision making process. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this outtake photo. I had originally cropped it down to include only the two players attacking the ball, but I’m finding I’m liking this crop too.

I’ve made this and the other polo images available for sale because the players have expressed some interest. I’m aware the “buy buttons” can be a bit distracting and I do try to keep them off my blog. Instead I prefer to have them on my “Purchase” page but for ease of ordering by my “models” I’m making an exception here. Thank you for understanding.

Jul

2011

Polo Teaser 2

I’m working on my series of images from the polo match I shot 4th of July weekend and have been dying to post some images but don’t want to give too much away. I’m hoping the series can stand on its own. However, I thought I might post an outtake. Here is Diego Flores riding Peanut during one of the chukkers.

Jul

2011

Polo Teaser

As some of you know my wife and I were invited to visit a ranching friend of ours this past weekend and attend a polo match on his property. I’d never seen polo before and was unaware such a spirited and vibrant community existed in the state of New Mexico. Here is an image as a teaser of more to come. I took close to 800 frames while there so hopefully I can manage a decent photo-essay.